The Fire Grows
by Sphered-Rhyme
Summary: "She heard something rattle as it hit the ground. She picked up an orange pill bottle filled with small white pills, prescribed to Carlton Lassiter. Nitro? Why did she not know about this? "


He was sitting at his desk, going over the warrants for tomorrow, when Carlton felt he was in trouble. He'd known about his heart condition since he was 23, still a rookie cop fresh from academy.

He'd been on a foot pursuit when he realized he was unusually out of breath, but he pushed on, figuring it was just from his running schedule being off lately.

As he and his partner chased their perp up a few flights of a fire escape, pain gripped him from deep in his chest, causing his knees to buckle on the stairs. He stayed half-collapsed, desperately clutching his chest, and trying to fill his lungs. His partner caught up with him a few moments later, but Lassiter waved him on; the perp was more important.

The pain in his chest felt like being constricted from the inside out, and try as he might, he couldn't get a breath. He stayed that way until his partner called him over the radio for backup. "Copy that" he managed to choke out over his radio. He picked himself up, and slowly made his way up the last two and a half flights of stairs to his partner, and they tied up the pursuit. Carlton played off the whole episode with jokes about really needing to get back into 'Academy shape'.

He'd gone to his personal physician the next day, and went to several follow-up appointments with a cardiologist over the next month. The testing had found a congenital heart defect that caused spasms in his arteries, which had caused the episode that day. There hadn't been any permanent damage from the event, but the news meant he was at high risk for a heart attack. He'd been lucky this time, but he had to make many serious changes to his life. He'd bargained with his doctor to keep it just between them, promising he'd do everything in his power to keep it under control, and keep others out of harm's way.

And he had.

It's why he was always first on shift change. He always left early just in case he had a problem in the morning that he needed time to deal with.

It's why he always made the coffee in the station, so that no one would notice him making his own decaf at the same time.

It's why he always took an aspirin with his lunch, though he played that off as a preventative measure because of his age.

But time had caught up with him.

Making sure that the warrants for the next day were perfect, he suddenly felt his chest constrict; his grip tightening on the papers in his hand, crumpling them.

 _Keep it together Carlton._ He took deliberately slow, deep breaths, though the deeper breathing made the ache deeper. He looked around to see if anyone had noticed.

Confirming that they had, indeed, not noticed, he put his head on his hands, trying to make it look like he was just tired, or mad—people always bought THAT angle from him.

He'd sat that way for a while, with nothing getting better. He'd absent-mindedly placed his hand on his chest, grinding his palm into his skin and grabbing his shirt. This didn't feel right-well, the pains never felt right, but this was wrong. This was not normal. _It should be letting up by now._

"Carlton…?" O'Hara's voice. Shit.

"What O'Hara?" His words came out much more harshly than he'd intended. He sighed, looking up at her. "What do you need?" still bitter, but not as harsh.

"Are you okay?"

"Fine, O'Hara."

She didn't go away.

"Anything else?" He really needed her to go away, because he really needed to get away. She cocked her eyebrow, "If you're fine, what up with the-" she pointed at the hand pressed into his chest.

"That's—it's just something I do when I'm stressed." Telling the lie he'd told many times before. She wasn't buying it. "Look, it's something I've done my whole life. Surely you've noticed, _detective._ " He really needed to get out of there. Every word he spoke his façade threatened to crumble on top of him. He just needed to make it to his car, take an early lunch break, ride it out. _God damn it, why it she still here?_

"Why are you sweating?"

"O'Hara, as much as I'd love to discuss what happens to the human body when its hot outside, I'm not going to." He stood to leave, and she moved into his way. "O'Hara, could you kindly—" The vice on his heart tightened, causing Carlton to double over back into his chair. This definitely wasn't right. It'd never escalated like this.

"Oh my God Carlton! What's going on!"

 _Just push through it._ "Nothing. Just got… dizzy… when I stoo—"

"Oh stop it Carlton!" I'm not an idiot!" She kneeled down, at his eye-level, "and neither are you." She laid her hand over his white-kuckled one. He didn't want to admit it to her, but he knew he needed help. This time was different. He finally looked up at her; she looked genuinely concerned. He nodded, still clutching at his chest. "What do I need to do?" She asked him, clearly looking to him for the best way she could help.

"Observation room" he manages to get the one phrase out before the vice tightened even further, causing his hand to drive further into his chest, and forcing his breaths out in sharp gasps.

"Okay, okay, let's go." She helped him out of his chair, putting her arms around his middle. He leaned heavily into her as they made their way to interrogation, stumbling the whole way; his tall frame threatening to knock his partner's down with every step. He heard her mutter that he wasn't feeling well to several people as they continued. When they got to the stairs, she readjusted her grip, sliding under his shoulder, and he leaned heavily on her.

When they were halfway down, he had to stop. "O'Hara—" he dug the hand that was on her arm into her skin, trying to keep steady, but his whole body was shaking, and his legs threatened to fall out from under him. "Whoa okay, okay." They stopped for a moment on the stairs.

"Do you think you can make it the rest of the way?" He really wasn't sure, but he nodded anyway, and took a tentative step forward. They took the rest of the stairs at an excruciatingly slow pace, but he just couldn't go any faster. He kept his hand against his chest like his heart would burst out if it wasn't held in.

When they finally rounded the corner into interrogation A, he knew he was going to pass out if he didn't sit down. He couldn't take any sort of deep breath, and each inhale was followed immediately by a sharp exhale. He collapsed against the wall, nearly taking O'Hara with him.

"Carlton, what the hell is going on?"

He tapped on his chest with his hand, and noticed how much it was shaking. He mouthed the word 'heart' at her, breathing too quickly to speak.

"Your heart?" He nodded. "How do you know?" He rolled his eyes, glaring up at her. _Really?_ "Okay, I get it. Can't talk. Sorry." He let his head lean back against the wall. Juliet knelt beside him, taking his other arm into her hand. He already knew what she was going to find—his pulse was way too fast.

She whipped out her cell from her pocket, and began to dial, but he reached out and grabbed her hand, "No..h-hospital.." he managed.

"I've got to do something! I'm not just going to let you sit here like this while your heart explodes!"

"No. Hospitals." He repeated.

"Either you give me an alternative, or you're going to the ER right now." He searched her eyes for any break in her resolve, but there wasn't any.

Damn it.

He held up a shaking hand at her, motioning for her to give him a minute.

"Now, Carlton."

He closed his eyes, riding out another wave of pain in his chest. He felt a hand squeezing his shoulder, and instinctually reached up to grab it, and held onto it like a lifeline during the wave. He managed to get out two words to her, "Desk…jacket…" before the pain ramped up again, having never crested from the last wave, and he curled into himself, completely ignoring everything else around him.

Juliet ran out of the room and up the stairs, taking them two at a time. She reached Carlton's desk in no time, and grabbed his jacket, whipping back around.

When she was almost to the interrogation door, she heard something rattle as it hit the ground. She picked up an orange pill bottle filled with small white pills, prescribed to Carlton Lassiter. _Nitro?_ Why did she not know about this? Did anyone else know about it? Why was he hiding it?

"Nnnghh!"

The harp groan from the room snapped her back to the task at hand, and she rushed back into the room, finding her partner completely curled into himself on the floor. "Oh My god, Carlton!" She dropped down beside him, pills in hand. She did her best to pull his lanky frame into her, so that his head and upper back were leaning into her chest.

"I brought your jacket, the pills fell out, are they what you needed?"

"Hnnnghh…" he held out a shaking hand, with two fingers out. "Two of them?" She fumbled with the cap of the bottle. "Ye-yes…" She could feel him tensing more against her, constricting with each sharp inhale he took.

She shook some pills into her hand, and pinched two between her fingers, dumping the rest out of her hand, not caring where they went at the moment. She put her hand near Carlton's face, pressing the pills into his lips. His mouth opened, and she dropped them in. She could hear the struggle he was in to keep his mouth closed, grunting as each breath was forced through his nose.

They sat there another few minutes, her partner trembling in her arms, his head on her shoulder. After a time, she felt a slight release of tension from her partner. His breathing was still rapid, and he hadn't stopped shaking, but he let himself slump against her, rather than being tightly coiled into himself.

She heard him mutter something, but she didn't make it out. "What Carlton?" She leaned her head down so she could hear him, "…how… long?" "How long for what, Carlton?" he didn't respond right away, taking in a few more breaths before he muttered, "Pills."

"Oh." She looked at her watch, but she honestly hadn't thought to look at the time that she'd given them to him. "I don't know, about 5 minutes maybe?" He nodded, reaching out and grabbing a pill from the floor and popping it in his mouth. He pressed himself further into her, nestling his head into her shoulder. She could feel the sweat and warmth through his shirts. She ran her fingers through his hair, sweeping the wet strands away off of his forehead.

After another few minutes, his breathing began to slow down, but was still very shallow. He seemed to relax, but she could still watch flickers of pain dart across his features.

"Carlton…I've got to get you to a doctor. Even if you're being treated already, this isn't okay." She continued to stroke his hair, waiting for a response. When she didn't get one, she continued, "Why don't you want to go to a hospital? You've obviously already gotten treatment for this."

"…Records…they'll…step-down…force. Can't, know." So he was worried about losing his job; being taken out of the field. "Chief Vick won't make you step down Carlton, you've been making it work so far, and no one has known. You can keep making it work."

"no… hospitals." His blue eyes shot up to meet hers.

"Well, I'm calling somebody. If you don't tell me who, it'll be 911." He tensed, clutching his chest harder. His hand hadn't moved from the middle of his chest this entire time. "Carlton, please, tell me who I can call." She waited a moment, and the pain seemed to pass, and he slowly reached out to his suit jacket, fishing out his phone and handing it to her.

"Dr. Leo…Jefferson."

She looked through his contacts, and found the number. She'd never been so grateful for a Monday morning in all her lifetime- she knew the doctor would be at his office.

The line rang only once, and a man's voice came through, "Hello?"

"Hi, this is Detective Juliet O'Hara with the SBPD. I'm calling about Carlton Lassiter."


End file.
